Hideous Beauty

by William Hussey

  “Thank you, Frecks,” he says.

  Then he touches me. Or not quite. The pads of his fingers hover over the bridge of freckles that span my nose, and it’s like electricity moving across my face. I smell the sweetness of his fingers. Starburst. My junk food connoisseur senses would know that smell anywhere. He likes Starburst. I file that fact away for future reference.

  “Hello,” I say. “I’m, uh, Dylan.”

  He shakes his head and, because I’m an idiot, I shake mine. “No?”

  “No,” he says. “You’re Frecks. And now I’m going to scold you, Frecks.”

  “Okay.”

  “You just signed something without reading it. Do you know what that piece of paper actually says?”

  “I don’t.”

  “It says that you must be my friend and live only to please me until your dying day. This is a legally binding document, Mr Frecks.” He brandishes it like the Magna Carta. “Will you honour your commitments?”

  “I will,” I say, and I take a knee, as if I’m about to be knighted.

  He laughs and swats me with the petition. “Get up, you adorable moron. See, it says here that Mr Highfield, the protoplasmic bigot who runs Ferrivale High football, must give me a place on the team. Doubtless you’ve heard about my stellar try-out today? And anyway, just look at these thighs! Don’t they deserve to be seen in very short shorts?”

  He pushes out his right leg and cups a bulging thigh muscle between his big hands. Is there a place drier than the deserts of Mars? My mouth is now that place.

  “You make a strong argument…”

  “Ellis,” he tells me.

  “Ellis.”

  He stands up again and looks at me for a long time. I drop my gaze. Jesus, I want to look at his thigh again. I want to look at his dancing fingers and his swimmer’s body and his coal-black curls and his eyes. Maybe just his eyes. For an hour or two.

  But then I hear Gemma’s piercing voice and hers and Ollie’s and Mike’s petitions are thrust into Ellis’s hand.

  “Welcome to Ferrivale, new boy! I’m Gemma and I run the LGBTQ safe space at school, and I want you to know that you’re welcome any time. Our meetings are—”

  He arches an eyebrow. “What makes you think I’m gay?”

  “Well. I just assu—”

  “Assumptions are at the root of all prejudice,” he tells her, and flashes me a sidelong smile. I have to bite the inside of my cheek. “What kind of school is this anyway?”

  Behind Gemma both Ollie and Mike are grinning like hyenas. Ellis lets her hang for a minute, then catches her in a hug. I’m immediately jealous.

  “I’m only playing with you, honey. I’m sorry.”

  Gemma cracks up in that high-pitched way of hers. I swear it sets off car alarms five streets over. Ellis is still hugging her and assuring her of his gay credentials when this hand comes out of nowhere and shoves him in the back. We’re all stunned as Gemma stumbles a bit, but Ellis trots gently forward as though he’s been expecting it all evening.

  “What do you think you’re doing, you little homo?”

  I turn to see Alistair Pardue, followed by a couple of his fellow knuckle-draggers. Honestly, these guys make the Incredible Hulk look witty and sophisticated.

  Alistair’s knocked Ellis pretty close to the bonfire, but he just brushes himself down and saunters back into our huddle.

  “Homo?” he muses. “Okay, but I assure you, in no department can I be described as ‘little’.”

  “Are you guys just gonna stand here and let this queer make a laughing stock of the team?” Alistair spits at Mike and Ollie.

  Mike groans and Ollie pinches the bridge between his eyes. They’ve both wanted Alistair off the team for ages but Mr Highfield is drinking buddies with Al’s dad. Mike tells me he’d rather have me in defence than Pardue, which is a pretty harsh indictment of Alistair’s skills.

  “Get lost, Al,” Mike says. “You wear me out.”

  “It’s okay.” Ellis holds up his hand. “Let the man speak.”

  Alistair rolls his head, shoulder to shoulder, and fronts up to Ellis. I should do something. I’m no fighter, never have been, but this crap makes me feel ashamed of our school. And anyway, I’d rather Alistair rearrange my imperfect face than Ellis’s perfect one. I’m about to say something – Christ knows what – when Alistair says:

  “You try out for the team again, I will personally fuck you up.”

  Ellis shrugs. “You can try.”

  Alistair roars and starts to swing his fist. And Ellis is like Barry Allen, aka the Flash. I’m not even kidding. That long, lithe body stoops and draws back, then he throws his hand behind his shoulder and uses those huge (breathtaking!) thigh muscles to power his punch right the way through his body. Four knuckles strike Alistair in the sweet spot under his jaw and his head snaps back. And then he’s flying, almost somersaulting, and the knuckle-draggers are quickly making room for a very awkward landing. Al hits the deck just as Ellis shakes loose his fingers.

  Then, from the other side of the field, and right on cue, the school band trills –

  Ta-dah!

  “That. Was. Awe. Some!” Mike shouts.

  Ollie just stands there, mouth open. Gemma squeaks. Meanwhile Ellis sidles over.

  “Hey, Frecks.”

  “Um. Hey?”

  “Do me a favour?”

  “Um. Yeah?”

  “Could you buy me a cold drink?”

  “Um. Okay.”

  We walk in silence over to this little kiosk selling food and drink. From behind, I hear Mike telling Al he’s off the team, and screw Mr Highfield because if Al isn’t off the team Mike will walk. And so will Ollie. And they’re Ferrivale’s only decent strikers.

  I buy Ellis a can of diet Pepsi and he rolls it against his fist.

  “Better?”

  He gives me this smile that honestly takes my breath away. What the hell is going on tonight? Doesn’t this sort of thing only happen in books and movies? Ellis cracks the tab and takes a swig.

  “Wet your whistle?”

  He offers me the can. Jesus, I want to put my lips right where his lips have been…but I can’t. Because this isn’t a movie and he’s just teasing and I’m not ready. It makes me feel awful. If I’m not ready for him who will I ever be ready for? Take a chance, my brain screams, so what if he laughs? But that would kill me, and so I shake my head. He shrugs and finishes the can.

  “Better get a move on,” he says, “petitions to hand out.”

  I nod. Suddenly it’s like someone’s busted up the most amazing party and the music’s been killed and the lights are all on and everyone’s heading home.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Of course. Good luck.”

  He’s moving off, the crowds about to swallow him, when he turns back and grins.

  “Don’t forget, you are legally my friend now. No get out of jail, no turn around touch the ground, no going backsies. Friends until our dying day. Be seeing you, adorable Frecks.”

  And we have seen each other. All around school and at every history lesson and whenever I head out to the field to watch Mike and the team. Somehow Mike wangled it with Mr Highfield and a be-pearled Ellis is on the left wing. He’s amazing, too; Quicksilver and The Flash rolled into one. Meanwhile, a bruised and dumped Alistair Pardue stalks the corridors, looking murderous in this limp-dicked kind of way. Even the Year Sevens tease him.

  But Ellis and me? We seem sort of stuck. It’s my fault. Weeks go by and he gives me all these openings and I keep cock-blocking myself, if that’s even possible. He’ll come up with clichéd stuff like, “Can I borrow a pen?” Or intriguing gambits, like telling me his middle name is Maximillian, like that French revolutionary dude we’re studying in history. And me? I hand over the biro and beat a hasty retreat.

  I’m going to be closeted and single forever.

  The bell jangles above the bookshop door and the memory of bonfire smoke evaporates. I sigh and start to pack up my stuff. And then stop. I
t’s him. Ellis Maximillian Bell! He’s just walked into Hug-A-Book, Gemma Argyle hanging off his arm. I sink back into my chair and mask my face with the French Revolution.

  Shit shit shit.

  But why shit shit shit?

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  I keep glancing around the corner of my book. I watch them take a seat in the cafe area and order some complicated coffee creations. Gemma is yammering away…

  “Oh God, Ellis, you must help me pick a dress for the Easter dance. Yes, I know it’s eons away, but I want something really spectac this year, and I would ask Kates or Suzie but they’ve got all the fashion sense of a colour-blind horse. Ha! I don’t even know what that means. Anyway, they’re always telling me they’re busy at weekends, which is total bullshit because I saw them out together at Nando’s last Saturday…” Her eyes flicker and she takes a long sip of her coffee. “Anyway, my mum’s promised she’ll take me shopping, but she’s mega busy with my big sister right now. Did I tell you my sister’s going to be a model? Not that I care. I’ve got so much of my own stuff going on. But the thing is, I really, really, really need you right now, Ellis. So please say you’ll be my shopping buddy?”

  Draped over the table, Ellis has been using his little finger to make swirls in his drink. Then all of a sudden he bolts upright, licks the coffee from his pinkie, and zeroes in on me. I literally leap back behind my book.

  My face is burning. My lips are parched. I want him to find me. Crap, no, I don’t want him to find me. I’ll just wait here, forever if needs be. A chair and a book, what else does a boy need to survive…?

  Long elegant fingers grasp the top of my book and slide it out of my hands. I look up into an overpowering smile.

  “Oh. Hey, Ellis.”

  “Hello, Frecks.”

  He holds the book above me, almost daring me to make a grab for it.

  “So, Frecks, I have a serious question. Will you promise to answer it honestly?”

  This is it. He’s going to ask if I’m gay. And I’m going to tell him. If I don’t, I think I’ll explode and take half of Ferrivale with me, just like Jean Grey when she becomes Dark Phoenix in— Oh shut up, nerd brain!

  “I will answer honestly, yes,” I tell him.

  “Okay.” He takes a breath. “So here’s the thing: were you always this rubbish at hide-and-seek?”

  I know I’m in my bedroom, sitting at my desk, staring into space – a bit like Professor X in his Cerebro mind machine – but mostly I’m with you, El. In the car. In the lake.

  “Hands at nine and three on the steering wheel,” you tell me in your best driving instructor’s voice. “Then mirror, signal…”

  My elbows splosh in the freezing water as I take a grip on the wheel. I angle the rear-view mirror and see our picnic hamper floating above the back seats, reeds dancing outside the windows like mermaid hair.

  “Manoeuvre.”

  Your hand creeps across my lap and dips into that sweet spot of my inner thigh. I close my eyes and you giggle. It’s a horrible, burbling sound, not a bit like your usual laughter. I turn and look at you. You’ve taken back your hand and you’re twirling your pearls, except when I look closer they aren’t pearls at all. They’re all exact copies of the tooth you lost the night you came out to your parents.

  “Are you enjoying your latest episode, Mr Frecks?” A dribble of black lake water escapes your lips when you speak. It makes me want to scream. “You know what’s happening right now, don’t you? Course you do. I know my Prof. You’ll have done all your post-traumatic stress disorder research.” He reels off my symptoms on his fingers. “Flashbacks. Nightmares. Visual and auditory hallucinations. Avoiding places that remind you of me. Giving up on school and uni and everything that made you you. Anger, aggression, guilt, shame—”

  “Stop it.” I want to take my hands from the wheel but I can’t. It wouldn’t be safe.

  “A sense that you have no future.”

  I notice the cheery snow globe on the dashboard, the cheeky little elf clutching his sack of presents. Remember the story we made up about him? Gangsta elf on the run? The water picks him up and he starts to float, just as the radio crackles into life. George Ezra. That deep, soulful voice singing about his own personal paradise…

  And suddenly I’m back in my bedroom. April sunshine beats at the closed curtains. Dust motes spiral like atoms in a crematorium furnace. It’s been twenty-four hours since your funeral. Are you gone yet, El? Last night I was tempted to google how long it takes to burn a body, but just like when I thought about leaving home, I didn’t have the guts.

  I twist on my swivel chair. I have nothing to do. No homework, no revision, no PowerPoint-illustrated argument to convince you that the doner kebab is among the finest of mankind’s achievements. What was my go-to activity in my pre-El days? Well, it’s worth a try. I drag my laptop across the desk, type a couple of gay porn comic sites into the address bar and unzip my jeans. I click and stare, click and stare. My gaze drifts from the computer to my desk and I picture the drawing you gave me at the Berringtons’ barbecue, currently taped on the underside of the drawer. Maybe it would inspire a burst of hardness, maybe it would leave me in a curled-up ball on the floor, heaving for air.

  I snap my laptop shut, zip up my jeans, and head for the door. At the top of the stairs, I stop and listen. I still can’t look at my parents. Was I being unreasonable, expecting them to host your wake? Was that actually insane? I really don’t know any more. When I got home yesterday they gave me these shy smiles and asked how it had gone.

  “They shoved him inside a cardboard coffin and put him in an oven,” I told them, and immediately hated myself. It was cruel, not only to my folks but to Julia. Your coffin was perfect, El.

  Later Mum tried bringing me up a sandwich but I kept the door locked. I think you’d tear me a new one over that, but hey, you were always a better human being than I am. So I should just apologize, right? Yes, okay, El, do you ever get tired of always being the bigger person?

  I start down the stairs, holding out my hand for yours as I go, because that’s how we rolled the night we told them. Final tactical mission briefing in my room, then I kissed you and we set out together, hand in hand, sallying forth to do battle with Barbara and Gordon. Except there was no battle. It worked out fine. Or at least you thought so. But between Mum bouncing up and down and Dad’s awkward hug, there was that look you didn’t catch, and I never told you because next to broken teeth and homelessness it seemed so small.

  I’m almost at the kitchen door when Chris’s voice stops me in my tracks.

  “Look, I don’t want to be mean, but Dylan is, what, seventeen?”

  “Eighteen,” Mum corrects him. “His birthday was just before Christmas, remember? Really, Christopher.”

  “Okay, okay,” Chris mutters. “My point is, Ellis was his first boyfriend, so of course he thinks the world’s coming to an end. Remember when I split up with Vicki Clarkson? I cried my eyes out for a whole afternoon.”

  “You were thirteen and Vicki didn’t die in front of you,” Mum says. My heart thaws for her a little.

  “Right, but what I’m saying is, your first love is always this really melodramatic thing. And what with Dylan being the way he is…well, of course he’s gonna make a song and dance out of it.”

  “Chris, I really think you should show more understanding. And I don’t know what you mean by ‘Dylan being the way he is’.”

  “I mean,” Chris persists, “that Dylan has always made a big deal out of things. I’m not saying he does it because he’s gay, he’s just that way inclined. And anyway…”

  “What?”

  “Well…it could be a phase.”

  “Oh, I don’t think—”

  “Just hear me out. Ellis was a good kid, I’m not saying he wasn’t. But did you ever notice Dylan being…you know, before he turned up?”

  “Dylan is a very intelligent young man,” Mum counters. “He knows his own mind.”

 
; “Mum, come on. Dylan’s always been a follower. Bloody hell, he couldn’t even walk through the centre of town a few months ago because it made him antsy. People like that need strong figures to latch onto. Look, I’m just saying, if El had been a tightrope walker then Dylan would have joined the freaking circus. So of course he’s gonna be acting a bit mental right now, but I honestly think he’ll come round. As soon as the memory of Ellis fades a bit, we’ll get the old Dylan back.”

  My heart is pounding. I want to go in there and smash the bastard’s head right through the marble tabletop. There’s a pause, and then Mum says:

  “You could be right. Even if Dylan is gay, or maybe bi, Ellis wasn’t good for him. Your father said so that day at the Berringtons’ barbecue. Now, Dad’s got this new intern at his firm, a boy from the community college, but really nice, and he’s gay. But you’d never know it. Not like… Well. Anyway. Maybe we could introduce him to Dyls one day and…”

  I slam the front door loud enough so they know I’ve heard. Yeah, it’s childish but it’s important they get the message: first, I wouldn’t trust Numbnuts Chris to psychoanalyse the teddy bear he still sleeps with. Second, Mum: I. Am. Gay. Jesus, I’ve been gay ever since I first started paddling around in your womb, and I’ve known it ever since a two-page spread of a shirtless Hal Jordan (aka Green Lantern) gave me my first ever boner. And Dad? No, I do not want to meet your straight-acting twink intern.

  So do you get it now, El? Do you understand why I wasn’t jumping for joy at my parents’ reaction that night? Because I know just how far their tolerance goes.

  I’m halfway down the drive, heading I don’t know where, when the postman calls my name. Letter for me. If it’s another bunch of cards from Gemma and the LGBTQ safe-space guys, I swear… I ask him to leave it with my mum, but then I suddenly notice URGENT printed across the top. I’ve never received an urgent letter in my life, and that handwriting, ultra-careful and characterless, makes me stop.

  “Second thoughts, I’ll take it.”

  I weigh it in my hand. Nothing to it, maybe just a single sheet inside. Perhaps it’s a poison pen letter. I haven’t received any homophobic hate mail since you died, El, but sick minds might bide their time, and maybe Mum has filtered my post without me knowing. I wander over to my bike, hands shaking a little. What if there’s a razor blade inside, or a needle? I’ve read about nasty crap like that.